Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z...what's next?

...after a couple of threads on the generation differences...what will the next generation be called? The infants and as yet unborn from now for the next 15/20 years.

What is a defining characteristic in their formative years? Could they be "the Childcare generation" given the vast numbers that end up in childcare as both parents work?

It's not that catchy, plus it could apply to those who avail of childcare...when they're already Gen Xers and Millennials.

Any alternative titles?

Generation AA.

osarusan

Generation STFU.

Your Face

Ascension.

Pac1Man

Omackeral

I've seen iGeneration used.

Omackeral

Omackeral wrote: »

I've seen iGeneration used.

That's not bad actually. I was thinking of verbs like swiping and scrolling, have a 2 1/2 year old who knows her way around a touchscreen pretty handily, but that works better.

PARlance

Generation F'd

Samaris

Let us hope we've gotten over this stupid obsession with labelling generations based on fuzzy start and end dates for the sake of being able to slag off whichever generation one personally is not part of.

Because the whole thing is bollocks. (If I was forced at gunpoint, iGen is probably as good as any)

Samaris

Samaris wrote: »

Let us hope we've gotten over this stupid obsession with labelling generations based on fuzzy start and end dates for the sake of being able to slag off whichever generation one personally is not part of.

It's not really to slag them off, it's more of a sociology thing to identify traits that distinguish generations. In fact suspect the amount of slagging off of preceding generations is limited. Most of the names are just shorthand, instead of constantly saying "children born in the more affluent and optimistic post war years", "children that were born as marriage breakdown rates increased in the 70s and 80s and grew up more cynical and disaffected" etc.

myshirt

Whatever you want to label them, I'm quite worried about the next batch. There is a worrying amount of mental illness prevalent, and underdeveloped abilities to deal with life challenges. I put it down to Facebook, Snapchat, and Tinder.

The Irish were always resilient, resourceful, helped each other, and were great at creating meaningful relationships. Necessity breeds creation was the order of the day. Put an Irish man in with a load of poisonous snakes and he'd come out wearing snake skin shoes. Our mammies were the best mammies ever, the real silent partner driving this economy making sure everyone was fed, washed, clothed, and taken care of.

My perception is the kids are not so good at that anymore. They are not hungry enough, bar the working class kids who are grafters but really have been f#cked over by the baby boomers and early gen'x'ers.

Birneybau

Nothing. #Dotard

Mint Sauce

Snowflake Mk2

myshirt

myshirt wrote: »

Our mammies were the best mammies ever, the real silent partner driving this economy making sure everyone was fed, washed, clothed, and taken care of.

The silver lining is they might be spared every comedian starting a routine with "ah but us Irish lads, we love our mammies"...

diomed

generalization generation

The Backwards Man

Generation REO

buried

Generation WTF did ye bring me into this absolute kip for you dicks

Samaris

Deleted User wrote: »

It's not really to slag them off, it's more of a sociology thing to identify traits that distinguish generations. In fact suspect the amount of slagging off of preceding generations is limited. Most of the names are just shorthand, instead of constantly saying "children born in the more affluent and optimistic post war years", "children that were born as marriage breakdown rates increased in the 70s and 80s and grew up more cynical and disaffected" etc.

Type "Millennials are..." into Google and see what you get!

It's mostly preceding generations dumping on people born between sometime-in-the-80s to sometime-in-the-90s. This has, ofc, always happened, and younger generations complain about the previous ones too, but it's absolutely wholesale at the moment!

To save a bit of time, here's the list I got!
Millennials are...

Millennials are killing
Millennials are killing napkins
Millennials aren't buying diamonds (le shock!)
Millennials are killing golf
Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists


I like "Millennials are killing". Just killing. Everything. This is what an entire generation was born for. If you were born at any point within about a twenty-year span, you have helped to kill the everything just apparently by existing.

At this point, it looks rather like the sort of nastiness that a group that knows they screwed up a different group employs to reassure everyone that it doesn't really count, said other group were obviously awful people and probably did it themselves and are being really mean to them.

The generation thing is eye-rollingly stupid. It made sense when it was actually talking about differences in the world between time periods, but currently, it is mostly an excuse to bull**** about "kids of today" and never mind that half of them are adults dealing with a bloody mess that was dumped on them.

Samaris

Samaris wrote: »

Type "Millennials are..." into Google and see what you get!.

Oh I know what you get. I am an employer, thankfully my staff are just above Millennial level but I hear colleagues saying all the time "can't type a letter, can't send an envelope, can't handle criticism, get all defensive" used constantly when colleagues describe the latest 20 something they employ. But that's a truism of all generations, they all look at the next one and think "stop your snivelling, we saw the news from WWII/Korea/Vietnam/Rwanda and Bosnia, you lot never had it so good", and doesn't really depend on the nomenclature for generations for its validity. If we stopped saying Millennial, the sentiment would still be the same, it would simply change to "20 somethings" etc.

There is a lot of sociology in the idea that generations change. Not sure it's all eye rollingly stupid, they are subjected to different influences and needs. It would be more surprising if society and generations didn't change over every 15-20 years.

alchemist33

I hate the term Millenial. If it meant they were born during or after 2000 it might mean something, but instead it's got nothing to do with the Millenium except they were born in the 80s or 90s or something.

Django99

There isn't no such thing as a generation, at least in the sense that you could label them as baby boomers, generation x, millennials etc.

The idea suggests that people born in a certain period are all defined by similar characteristics, which is completely illogical. People are born and are shaped by the environment around them.

Django99

Django99 wrote: »

The idea suggests that people born in a certain period are all defined by similar characteristics, which is completely illogical. People are born and are shaped by the environment around them.

Erm...precisely. The whole premise of generational change is that people are not defined by DNA, but the environment around them. And that goes thorough massive changes. Unless you are suggesting society in 2010 (millienials) was the same as 1990 (Generation Xers) was the same as 1970 (baby boomers) etc.

mahamageehad

Logically shouldn't we just go back to the start again and go Gen A? Or does it go into numbers after Z? :pac:

Gen 0 I like. Not just because I think "Gen 0'ers are killing..." sounds funny.
Also coz its a binary reference so we can then start counting in binary which will be easier for our robot overlords.

Django99

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Erm...precisely. The whole premise of generational change is that people are not defined by DNA, but the environment around them. And that goes thorough massive changes. Unless you are suggesting society in 2010 (millienials) was the same as 1990 (Generation Xers) was the same as 1970 (baby boomers) etc.

Broadly, I would say that society was pretty much the same for the people born in all those decades.

But the environment that a person grows up in is different depending on a huge number of factors that is far more important than the year they were born.

My main point being, to characterise billions of people based on the year they were born is meaningless.

buried

Trying to define people over the last 100 years into decade sub-divisions of 'generation x-y-z-#-@' or whatever the f**k is utterly pointless and ridiculous. Nobody in 200 years time is going to be calling anyone living in this age any of that $hite. This is the age of the individual. That's the way it's been the last 60 years and this current age is the pinnacle of it. With the internet it has reached that pinnacle. Inward looking, no community, no thought of the future, ME ME ME people. That's how this "generation" will be remembered by future history, if a history will even exist in the future, due to the 'me me me, I'll do whatever the f**k I want' culture that exists today.
GenerationF**kingarseholes is what people in the future will call us, if they're even going to be around to call us that.

jimmycrackcorm

If this Trump Kim thing plays out then we'll all be generation nuked

Samaris

Deleted User wrote: »

There is a lot of sociology in the idea that generations change. Not sure it's all eye rollingly stupid, they are subjected to different influences and needs. It would be more surprising if society and generations didn't change over every 15-20 years.

Oh, they do, and there tends to be a swing of opinion every x decades too, the whole rebelling against your parents thing, liberal to conservative swings and back. But that's not what this is used for, is it? It's about appending a label, because jaysus H, everything must have a label.

Some of the following is kinda answering your post, some is my own thoughts, so if I say something irrelevant to your comment, it's probably not directly focused to you, Conor;

Greatest Generation - 1910-1924
Generation-We're-Trying-To-Rebuild-And-Not-Die-of-Flu-so-bog-off-with-your-nonsense - 1924-1945 (aka. Silent Generation or possibly "oh ****, those guys")
Baby Boomers - 1945-1964
Gen X - 1965-1976
Gen Y - 1977-198? - end years can range from 1981 to 1988.
Millennials (often includes Gen Y) - 1977-1996 OR 1981-1997 OR 1988-1997 OR [years in which napkin sales fell]
Gen Z - 1996-...2017?

14 year generation, 21 year generation of not giving a fcuk, 21 year generation, 11 year generation, 10/4/0 year generation, 9/16/30ish year generation, ? generation. (My mental subtraction may be off, sue me )

partially from http://genhq.com/faq-info-about-generations/, partially Google search, as this site doesn't include Gen Y


Further to that, parenting is supposed to play a large part in the next generation (logically enough), but the Baby Boomers can have parented Gen X, Y and M, yet these three are treated completely separately, and one may not even exist.

After that, it varies based on where you born as well as when, but let's face it, who knows where later generations appeared when? When did "Gen X" start in Ireland? When did it start in the UK? When did it start in Japan? Does anyone take this into account? Or is it just easier to make sweeping comments about "kids of today" that are exactly as much hot air as when the "greatest generation" were bitching about kids in the '30s?

It makes sense to talk about differences in how the world works between the birth and childhood of one generation/period to another, especially if the century is broken up by massive, society-changing events like WW1&2. It makes bugger-all sense to pick arbitrary years and then blame anyone born between them for killing napkins. Or golf or diamonds! Could the world-wide recession have anything to do with that? No? It's the direct personalities of anyone born between a period of 10-30 years?

Conor - you yourself claim you have no millennials (given you mention how close some of them are, you probably do, you just choose more convenient birth years :P), but you know because everyone says, partially including your friends, that Millennials are inherently stupid, lazy, unable to take criticism (maybe because they're being blamed for the ills of a 30-year timespan!) and hold murderous thoughts about napkins. Presumably this would put you off hiring anyone born between 1977-1996, but that seems mad altogether too (not to mention very awkward!).

Frankly, the whole thing breaks my logic centres too much to take it seriously, (despite my complaining here), although I dislike the wholesale dumping on young people, made so easy by the internet, and the atmosphere of sneering at the very real challenges they face, especially when it's based on stuff that is so...well...pathetic. Golf, diamonds, napkins and envelopes? Really?


(full disclosure - I seem to be a tweenie, may be one, may be the other, not really sure and not sure I care. I have napkins and envelopes to kill and I can blame it on the Millennials! )

Nabber

Generation I don't identify with generations

ToddyDoody

Maybe Pepsi will have a go at claiming a generation again. Who remembers The Pepsi Generation?

Samaris

Samaris wrote: »

Further to that, parenting is supposed to play a large part in the next generation (logically enough), but the Baby Boomers can have parented Gen X, Y and M, yet these three are treated completely separately, and one may not even exist.
...
Conor - you yourself claim you have no millennials (given you mention how close some of them are, you probably do, you just choose more convenient birth years :P), but you know because everyone says, partially including your friends, that Millennials are inherently stupid, lazy, unable to take criticism (maybe because they're being blamed for the ills of a 30-year timespan!) and hold murderous thoughts about napkins. Presumably this would put you off hiring anyone born between 1977-1996, but that seems mad altogether too (not to mention very awkward!)

In broad terms, they say generations are the parents of the generation after the next, so that can be an influence...as well as environment. So Millennials are broadly speaking the children of baby boomers, the Y generation the children of the x generation etc. So when analysing traits, sociologists can link, say, the narcissism of Millennials to a spoiling influence of baby boomers, perhaps the y generation will have some of the cynicism of their parents etc. Obviously to consider that you have to accept the premise that the whole area has any validity at all.

The youngest where I work is 34 and on the very high end of the Millennial range alright. And you can see some of the traits. But obviously it's not an absolute prescription and the cut off years are not absolute, I know deeply cynical and very able 20 somethings. She can be more defensive than the rest, but she is very good at her job. Thought we were going to have to engage the classic mid range Millennial 20 something type recently to cover for the 34 year old on maternity leave, got lucky and found someone in her 40s who had worked in an office for 20 years, slotted right in.

Samaris

I understand your premise although I think you might have the order off - technically by that Millennials should be children of Gen X, Gen Y should be children of the Boomers, no? I am rather inclined to the argument that Gen Y doesn't exist though, it makes for two very short generational spans that don't quite fit. At least Gen Melded XY is a twenty-year period.

Be that as it may, the usual setup is;

Boomers - Gen X - Gen Y - Millennials - Gen Z/iGen/whatever

A very early Gen X could ofc give birth to a later Gen Y, and there certainly are Millennials that are children of Boomers, but if it's generation-skipping (which makes sense, the timespans we're looking at are kinda half-generations really), it works out more as Boomers birthing Ys and X's birthing Ms.

Mind you, I know various people that fall into the Millennial years that were children of Boomers, and a few Gen Y's born of Xs and all the rest of it. Most of the iGen I'd know would be...yeah- birthed by Gen X, but that's mostly because my peer group is rather between generations anyway, so we have all the oddities that people born smack in the middle of one or tother might not. Z/iGen would be expected, by pattern, to be children of Gen Y, etc. Older parents (giving birth in their early forties, say) and young parents (teens, early twenties) throw the whole thing off anyway.

It's all pretty fuzzy.

WoollyRedHat

Meme Generation.

We will all become memes in the end.